St. Anthony's edges Monsignor Farrell 1-0 on late goal in hockey contest

St. Anthony’s had its opportunities against Monsignor Farrell, but kept coming away empty.

That changed midway through the final period as the Friars netted the game’s only goal on a power play to edge the Lions 1-0 in a CHSHL A contest on Saturday at the Abe Stark Rink in Brooklyn.

“You can’t give that team any kind of break. They were primed for the taking and we didn’t do it,” said Farrell head coach Peter Jerabeck. “A 1-0 game no matter which way you want to slice it is a great game, especially against St. Anthony’s.”

The two teams entered the contest as the division’s top teams and it looked like that early on as neither team scored in the initial period as Farrell goalie Kyle Schumacher (23 saves) and St. Anthony’s Dan Peterson (15 stops) played well.

The defending state champion Friars (5-1-0) started building momentum midway through the second period and had its best opportunity late when they had a two-man advantage for 52 seconds.

The South Huntington, L.I., squad failed to capitalize on that golden chance as Schumacher turned aside several shots. Those saves loomed large as the game remained scoreless until St. Anthony’s capitalized on another man advantage.

After Farrell (3-2) was whistled for a careless penalty in their defensive zone, the Friars’ Matt Martino took a pass on the ensuing faceoff and laced a slapshot past the junior goalie from the right wing with 5:31 remaining.

“We weren’t thinking. The guy who (got the penalty) took the puck back into the zone,” said Jerabeck. “We were talking about it all game don’t take the puck into your own zone. You have 20-30 feet, take the puck and throw it up. And we didn’t do that a couple of times. We almost got burnt, but this time we did.

“We had our opportunities. We hit two posts and we had a couple of opportunities on rebounds that just didn’t work,” added the coach.